Thanks for all the cool response. I didn't think I'd get so much. Sorry if Kira was a bit OOC last chapter but you would be too if you had to go through what he did.
NOTE: The Liberty unit I keep talking about? Yeah, it's the Strike Freedom. I was looking at Gundam designs and I liked it a whole lot but since I'm too lazy, I won't go back and change it. And I realized that all this time, Kira and the others were still in their formal clothes/pilot suits. Just go with the assumption that all of them changed into the uniform of the Endyminon, which is a blue outfit like the ORB ones with purple trim.
And as of right now, I have finished watching Gundam Seed Destiny and let me tell you, I'm not impressed. So since the villain here was going to be the spawn of Raww, a.k.a. Rey, I'm just going to go ahead and merge the two. The story will follow GSD loosely but follow it nonetheless.
"So tell me Kira. Just what have you had my sister doing all this time?" asked Lacus, as she leaned against him tentatively. This was still new territory to the both of them and she didn't want to make any type of mistake that might push Kira away. He swept away her doubts however when he placed his arm around her waist, pulling her close. She sighed wistfully and leaned against him.
"You want to see or you want me to bore you with the details?" He tried to hide his smile and failed miserably. She smiled at him and nearly melted his knees away.
I could definitely get used to seeing that more often in my direction…he thought.
"What would you rather do?" In response, he kept his arm around her waist and tugged her towards the door.
"To tell you the truth, Art had been pretty busy. She is the person you need to see about that. And if I know her like I think I do, she's working on the Liberty." She obediently followed after him, getting lost quickly. There was no doubt that she'd never be able to find her way around this ship without someone helping her. Kira held her closely to his body, comforted by her presence.
He had been alone for the longest time, feeling their separation every time he thought of her. Now, however, that annoying pain was gone and this time, not threatening to return. The elevator touched down and they reentered the hangar bay once more. It was mostly deserted since most of the crew were in another part of the ship having a good time. There were a few pilots lounging around here and there but no one noticed them.
"Artemis?" called Lacus. Kira shook his head and walked over to the far wall. It was solid, steel, and hidden behind the Calamity units. She looked questionably up at him and he winked.
"She always did have a thing for this particular unit," he replied, touching his hand on one of the plates. After a moment, the plate changed from steel gray to green and another plate slid back to reveal a well-lit factory. Kira gently closed Lacus' open mouth and led her in; the door closed behind them.
In front of them was what could only be described as a junkyard. Random parts were everywhere and nowhere at the same time but yet still there was an order to the mess. ZAFT mobile suit parts were on one side, Earth Alliance stuff on the other, and a small pile of ORB stuff somewhere in the middle. Art was actually on the right hand side, hanging from the ceiling, working on the head of an incomplete suit. It looked roughly like the Freedom, which was in the back left corner. It looked mostly the same from the last time Lacus had seen it although it was a little shiner and the wings a little bigger. She followed him as he navigated the mess, moving to the scaffold on one side. He stepped on the platform first, turning around to give her a hand.
"Such a gentleman." He kissed her on the lips, quite literally taking her breath away.
"Only for you," he returned, pressing a button, causing the platform to rise.
As they got closer, they found out why Art couldn't hear them or notice them at all; she was blasting some music in her ears. And singing, or rather rapping, bobbing her head up and down in time with the music, dangerously shaking her body, which was only supported by repelling gear that was strapped to her legs.
Kira and Lacus shared an amused look like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Think she's trying to tell us something?" he asked. She only shrugged and giggled a bit.
"Could be but who knows for sure? Artemis is a very odd girl."
"Amen to that." Over their heads, said mentioned girl was still cranking away, blissfully unaware of what was going on underneath her. She tapped on the laptop that was strapped to her stomach before rotating a bit to the left.
"Yes, although she's right, nobody was listening," concluded Lacus. Kira pulled her closer to his body.
"But I'm glad we did, eventually." They looked up at Art. She unhooked herself from her gear, flipping backwards expertly and landing in front of the now completed face. She unhooked the laptop as well, placing it by the head, still rapping the lyrics as she peered over the edge and jumped down, crouching and moving like a cat as she jumped in the cockpit. For reasons still unknown to them, she still hadn't realized that she wasn't alone.
"She can pilot too?"
"Yes, everyone on the ship can, to a certain extent. Art, when she does fly, is usually the sub commander of the Calamity unit. I try not too send her out often though."
"Why?" The head of the Liberty moved left and right while the arms rose up, rotating the wrists and flexing the fingers. They heard a cry of triumph from inside the cockpit when the fingers operated properly.
"A) She's the head mechanic so I can't risk her anyway. B) She's your little sister and I know you'd kill me if I let her die. And C) She's a little trigger-happy. The main reason she likes the Calamity so much. You should see her special unit…" Art popped out of the cockpit and started dancing.
"I did it! I did it!" she chanted.
"Did what?" called out Lacus. The smaller girl stopped and stared at them before glaring at their amused expressions. She pulled her headphones off and paused her music.
"When did you two get in here?" she asked, grabbing a stray wire that was just hanging around and swinging herself over to them, wiping the sweat off her brow with an oily arm. She had shrugged out of her jumpsuit, the top resting upside down on her waist and her white shirt stained with black.
"When you started singing. Why that particular song?" replied Kira. She shrugged.
"I guess cause I was so happy that the two of you FINALLY listened to me! So, when's the wedding and how soon can I expect nieces and nephews?" Both adults went red on cue and she smirked.
"So what's this?" asked Lacus, skillfully dodging the question by diverting the girl's attention to her favorite subject. As predicted, Art's face lit up like a Christmas tree.
"This," she said proudly, looking at the suit. "Is the Liberty."
"Don't tell me this is the suit you were designing after seeing the Freedom and the Providence?" Shock illuminated her face. Art had been working on the designs for MONTHS and some of the things she wanted to put in the suit were particularly abstract.
Or plain out impossible.
"The one and the same. Here. I'll show you what it's going to look like." She turned to a computer consol behind her. Seconds later, a hologram popped up. Art looked at it fondly.
"It's beautiful," said Lacus in awe. It looked remarkably like the Freedom but different as well. The angle of the torso pointed more downwards and instead of a flat part covering the cockpit, it was sunken in and reminded Lacus of the Scylla energy cannon on the Calamity. The wings were blacker than the Freedom's and twice as big with special blue parts on the inside of the wings that looked to be detachable. The rail cannons on the hips looked slimmer and all the joints were golden instead of just black. The overall body looked much smoother, more rounded, and a little darker than the Freedom as well.
"It is isn't it? Well, for beginners, it's a few meters taller than the Freedom and a bit heavier too. I've countered that with more powerful thrusters in the legs, back, rail cannons and wings. The rail cannons are more powerful as well. Took me forever to make them slimmer and more powerful though…the wings now house DRAGOONs; those are the extra blue parts in the wings. There's four per wing but the Balaenas are still in the wings, couldn't get rid of those." She gave an evil grin.
"You're just saying that cause you like blowing stuff up," snorted Kira. Art shrugged shamelessly.
"And? Moving on, that golden indent in the chest? It's a new cannon I developed from the Calamity's Scylla cannon. I call it the Callidus. There are also new hand guns as well, borrowed the idea from the Buster, so they can be combined to form a single high-energy rifle. They're stored on the back. They would have been on the hips bit that would have blocked the rail cannons. And for my crowning achievement. My beam shield generator. Automatically pops up whenever a beam comes at the Liberty or the pilot can call it on command."
"You actually got it to work? You've outdone yourself with this one sis," was all Lacus could say. Art flushed with pride.
"Well, I've got all the programming done and most of the weapons. I was fixing the sensors when you guys walked in."
"Just one question. What's powering it? All those nice beam weapons need a lot of power." Art looked away guiltily. She looked at the small repairer sternly. "Art? What's in the suit?"
"Um…a nuclear core?" Lacus just sighed as though resigned to the fact.
"I thought as much. But who's the real pilot?" When both of them just blinked, she grinned. "There's no way you're giving such a suit to Akira, no matter how good he may be. You're the pilot, aren't you Kira?"
In response, Art held out her hand and Kira irritably slapped her some money. Lacus raised an eyebrow at them.
"Oh, I bet him that you'd figure out who was the real pilot within one minute of finding out what the Liberty could really do and what was powering it," answered Art to the unasked question.
"I bet two minutes," said Kira. "But you are right, this is going to be my new suit. It's capabilities are far superior to what Akira could handle, no offense. The DRAGOONs alone would tie him up entirely."
"Not to mention the HiMAT system…that's what? Seven to fifteen beams at once?" She scoffed. "This is not a suit for beginners."
"Like you're one to talk?" asked Kira, playfully punching her shoulder. She mock-glared at him.
"Yes, at least I can multitask. And if you'll remember, I do have a HiMAT system in my RDaC. The best one on the ship." Lacus smiled fondly at them. They were just like older brother and annoying little sister. It was a very cute moment but she'd never tell Art that; the girl hated anything involving the word cute.
"RDaC?" Kira rolled his eyes in slight exasperation and annoyance.
"Stands for 'Random Demolition, Art's Calamity'. It's that personal unit of hers that I was talking about."
"I don't even want to know." She snickered slightly, thinking about what Art would do to a suit all her own. Especially with a melee unit like the Calamity.
"Good, cause I wasn't going to tell you anyway; it'd take way too long. Hey, I have a pretty great idea. Why don't you two go wait in the balcony on the left side? I'm sure there's a nice moon out tonight." Art smiled innocently enough but neither adult was buying it. Innocent was never a word to be used in the same sentence and context as Artemis.
"I don't know…" started Kira.
"Aw come on! Humor me!" Knowing he was delaying the inevitable, he agreed and they left to wait. Art grinned devilishly and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Plan M is a go. Round everyone up."
"Roger," came the crackled reply and Art went to go change.
Kira and Lacus walked out onto the aforementioned balcony to a beautiful full moon.
"Guess Temi wasn't lying…" stated Lacus. The moon illuminated the sky effortlessly, adding to the already brilliant background of stars. She stepped away from Kira, twirling in a circle like a little girl, giggling happily. He stood back and watched her.
Good Lord…she looks like a goddess like that…
With the moonlight illuminating her outline, blurring it slightly, she became seemingly one with the background. He just watched her twirl silently, a smile brightening his battle-worn face. The door opened to his left and to his surprise, Akira walked out followed by Athrun, Cagalli, Mwu and Murrue. Lacus stopped spinning to look at them.
"What are all of you doing here?" she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side, making her look even more adorable in Kira's biased eyes. Athrun shrugged and nodded to Akira.
"Ask him. He just rounded us up and said 'Follow me.'" The guilty boy threw his hands into the air as if to ward off any attacks.
"Don't blame me. I'm following higher orders."
"Who's?" asked Kira. As far as he knew, Akira and Art were two of his second in commands, following Mwu and Andrew.
"Mine," said Art, coming out in a full priest's outfit, decked out in all black with white outline. Everyone stared at her in surprise and Murrue was the first to speak.
"When did you become a priest?" She shrugged.
"I got bored one weekend. So I decided, 'Why not become a priest? I've got nothing better to do.'"
"But what do you need to be a priest for?" asked Cagalli. Art walked forward, stopping at the railing, her back to the ocean.
"I'm here to preside the marriages of course." Akira sneakily crept to the back by the door before everyone could explode.
"What marriages?" shouted Murrue. Art smiled and caught Akira about to leave.
"Yours of course and come here Akira!" The boy came to her side dejectedly. "Moving on, I happen to know for a fact that my sweet sister here has a very annoying suitor, a weirdo named Yuuna right?" Lacus shivered at his name involuntarily and Kira vowed to kill the man the first chance he got. Without Lacus knowing of course. He'd just get someone to do it if he couldn't anyway…
"Yes. He's been after me for quite a while now…"
"All the more reason for you to get married!"
"But none of us even have rings," commented Mwu. Artemis smirked.
"Actually, you do. I seem to remember all of you reserving rings at various places, which were picked up by me. Kira, you already have yours, as do you Cagalli." She brought out a small red velvet box and opened it up. Inside were four rings of various shapes and designs. The one on the very top was also the most individual of them all. The band itself was in varying shades of pink with a purple gem in the middle. The one below it had a platinum band with an emerald green gem, and the other two were ironically enough are exact inverses of one another, one being orange with a golden band and the other being blue with a silver. Cagalli and Kira stepped forward and added theirs to the last two spots. "I love it when I'm right. Now, who's going first?" Four of them immediately stepped back. Akira smiled.
"Dad, Lacus, you're up." Artemis shoved the case holding all the rings into his hands.
"Make yourself useful." (I'm not going to bore you with petty details since everything will be the same for each person only with different names. Just suffice to say that Kira gave Lacus the first one, Athrun got the green one, Murrue got the orange one and Mwu got the blue one.) Art was grinning ear to ear when she finished marrying Mwu and Murrue.
"I now pronounce you all husband and wife, thank goodness…you may kiss your brides gentlemen." The men were about to do just that when the door opened up once more, revealing a young man of maybe 23.
"David? What's the matter?" asked Kira, pulling away from Lacus and trying to keep the irate tone out of his voice.
"Commander! We've just received a message!" shouted David, his chest heaving slightly. It had to be important if he had to run. Or cause he couldn't find him to begin with.
"By whom?" asked Akira.
"It's the Unknown sir!" Kira stiffened slightly. The Unknown was the name he had given the group that kept stirring up trouble.
"Where's the message?" David handed him a piece of paper. His purple eyes flew across it.
"Art, I want you to trace this message. If you can find where it came from, launch Trinity." Art, Akira, and Mwu all started.
"Are you crazy!" shouted Mwu. Murrue glared at him and slapped his chest.
"The triplets dad?" asked Akira. "Are you serious?"
"They're crazier than me!" The remaining clueless people looked to each of them in turn.
"Who are the triplets?" asked Murrue. Mwu groaned, covering his forehead with his hand.
"They're former special forces from ORB. You should remember them Cagalli." She looked up, trying to remember any special forces members that had been discharged lately.
"Yeah…you don't mean those three who got dishonorably discharged for misconduct on the battlefield?" Kira nodded.
"The very same. If you can't find it, Art, don't worry. Are there any prisoners on the ground?" Akira scratched his head thoughtfully.
"I think so. Maybe two."
"Tell our ground forces to question them." David nodded and ran off, followed by Art. Cagalli turned to him.
"You do know their history…right?" Kira rolled his eyes.
"Of course I do. They have one of the biggest problems with authority I've ever seen and that's what got most of my pilots discharged in the first place."
"So they listen to you? I mean, actually listen?"
"Yeah, I just let them fight the way they want. I do keep it within reason though."
"If that was the case, why didn't you let them go at the ball?" asked Athrun.
"That's just it. I did. There really was a large amount of suits there. According to their count, they shot down nearly a hundred between the three of them."